Chapter VI (continued, part 2)
his own (namely, sinful) image. Yet so far as this institution may be
rescued out of the hands of sin, and be used by grace, God will restore it, and establish it again under grace. What was God s primitive institution
grace will keep to, and make it subserve itself for the propagating of its own
covenant, so far as it is not derogatory unto grace itself. And therefore God sanctifieth marriage still, and maketh an improvement of it in holy men
478 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.
and women to the same end that it was at first ordained to. So as the same institution of God s, which was that of nature, does still hold, that
* if the root be holy, so are the branches, Kom. xi. 16, and I will be the God of thee, and of thy seed, Gen. xvii. 7. Now this continuing of the institu
tion of marriage to such a holy end in people who are holy, was evidently held forth in the nation of the Jews, who were Abraham s seed (it is an instance which I urged before, and therefore will now only mention it), in that Mai. ii. 16, the prophet to convince the Jews (made
* an holy people, or holiness to the Lord, as he tells them, ver. 11) of those two sins, the
putting away the lawful wives of their own nation, ver. 13, 14, and their
marrying strange wives, the daughters of strange gods, ver. 11, he reduceth them to the primitive institution of marriage in innocency (whereunto God would have his people s marriages conformed), when first he made Adam and Eve one flesh, and so to cleave to each other as not to part ; and secondly, ordained their marriage and their being thus made one, to seek a godly seed, which end he still aimed at and intended in the marriages of his
people. And this end had they perverted by their mixtures with the
heathens, whose marriages God had said he would not bless to that end, but curse them in an ungodly issue. So that it appears that God instituted
marriage to the Jews then for the same end that at first ; so as God ordained
it then, and now doth ordain it to the same end, only with such a difference as that grace may appear grace. Which difference is apparent by these
particulars ; For, 1, then holiness was thus by generation conveyed by virtue of a natural necessary covenant ; but now, though out of a covenant too,
< 1 will be the God of thee and thy seed, yet out of a free covenant with his elect, not as a due to the father, as then by the law of nature, by which it was a due that if he begat he should beget in his kind ; but as a mere grant of
grace now, yet so as that whereas God might have marshalled his elect to come out of other men s loins, he freely chooseth rather to draw them out
of their loins who are his elect. And to shew that it is not as a due, but of
grace, he therefore takes not all his elect thence, or all their children, but
only for the most part out of that rank, so at once to shew that he keeps to
his old institution, and that grace is still grace notwithstanding, and not nature. So as that remains still true that was said by John, they are
* born not of flesh (or blood), but of God, John i. 13, yea, and of his own mere
will does God beget us, James i. 18. He begets those children of his
elect as freely as any other ; only his will was to take out of that lump and mass of the children of elect (as, Rom. xi. 16, the phrase is) rather than of
any other.
And, 2, holiness was then conveyed with and by generation itself, as natural endowments are. It was stamped in and with the very conception. The same mould that shaped them men, stamped God s image also. But not so now.
* In sin, says David, my mother conceived me, Ps. li. 5
(whose mother yet was a godly woman, and he a godly man, and this by virtue of her covenant also ; for in Ps. cxvi. 16, he pleads it, Truly I am
thy servant, I am thy servant, son of thy handmaid, and so in respect of
his propagation from her who had devoted herself to be God s servant, he
acknowledgeth himself to be such in a double obligation). So as still, by virtue of their father s and mother s generation, they are conceived in sin, and that which that act conveys is nothing but sin ; for necessarily those
* wholly
children that are sanctified in the womb must first be flesh, and
flesh, ere they be sanctified, else this their sanctification were not a regenera
tion, or a second birth, as John iii. 6. And so it is true that they are not
CHAP. VII. J OF ELECTION. 479
born of the flesh or of blood, John i. 13, for when they are thus wholly con ceived in sin, through the influence generation hath on them, then after God comes and sanctifies many of them, sometimes in the womb, sometimes afterward, yet so as though generation serves not herein as the immediate instrument or means to stamp grace, as then it did, yet still it serves as the channel to direct the course in which grace should run and is dispensed. And observe it, this is carried with the very same (or like) terms of differ ence that we observed in God s making use of the law in the covenant of grace to subserve it ; for look as it was not (as was said) the righteousness, Ix roD vo/aou, that is, by the force, power, and tenor of the law formally taken, that now justifies us, yet the same righteousness of the law materially taken, which before should, still doth. So is it here ; the seed of godly parents , whose God he is by covenant, and so the same subjects materially since the fall as before, are ordained to be sanctified, but not the same way ; not from or through their generation, or being begotten of them, formally considered, as was said of the righteousness of the law. So that it may still be said that the primitive law of generation is still fulfilled. And again, in like sense to that (which was also observed of the law) that God is said to reward, not propter, yet secundum opera, not for works, as then, yet according to our works, so here, though the covenant goes not per or propter, for or through their births, yet it is conveyed secundum, according to birth, even as before.
Now to strengthen this rule further, which is made the foundation of this
reason, take another instance to confirm it. God s end and institution in making the world, and all the creatures, was, that they should be used by man to holy and glorious ends, as holy utensils employed for God s glory, and together with it make for man s good, and contribute to him (whilst he serves God) every one their help and comfort, as tenants do provisions to
their lords ; and this was their primitive liberty and perfection ; but man be
ing fallen, Satan enters upon this world as a possession fallen unto him. The creatures are delivered up and betrayed into the hands of Satan and sin, and so are lost unto God and to themselves, they losing that liberty to which
they were created, and being themselves subjected to Satan s tyranny, a;id
accordingly they are often mustered up in rebellion against men by God, and
conspire by cross accidents and events to work his ruin and misery, as once
his happiness, as we see in all the crosses and afflictions with which thjs world is fitted. All this you have Rom. viii. ver. 20, 21, The crea
tures, says the apostle, were made subject to vanity, not willingly. Their
will is that natural instinct which God hath put into them at the first, to
arrive at the end for which he made them, against which they are forced to men s lusts, and ravished, and oppressed by them, which is called a vanity, because it is a frustration of that end for which God at first ordained them. But God resolves not to have his primitive end and purpose in creation to
be thus frustrated ; therefore to his elect at present, he sets all these crea
tures this task, to work together for their good, ver. 28, though not in so
direct a way as at first, yet in a more oblique (but certain) course. To this,
as to their common mark, they all tend and take their flight, though about,
by the bow, as we say, not by the string, grace will work and wheel them
about to their primitive end and institution. And further, God as yet not
so fully pleased with so indirect a course, hath appointed a time fully to
restore them to this their pristine perfection. He will rescue the poor op
pressed creatures out of the hands of sin and Satan ; a day is coming, wherein there shall be holiness to the Lord written upon the bells of horses
going to the plough and cart, which shall be as holy in their use to God, as
480 OF ELECTION. [BOOK V.
Aaron s bells once were, with which he went into the congregation ; and their pots they drink, or seethe their meat in, shall be holiness to theSLord, as were the bowls before the altar : Zech. xiv. 20, In that day shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness unto the Lord, and the pots in the Lord s house shall be like the bowls before the altar. The prophet speaks of the new Jerusalem, when the saints shall reign. And this you may fur ther see to be God s very aim and end in appointing a time for that new heaven and new earth wherein righteousness dwells, even that he might attain his first institution concerning them. Thus more expressly in Rom.
viii. the apostle, speaking of the time of Christ, the second Adam s kingdom, after the resurrection, says that by Adam they were thus indeed subjected, but in hope. For that God s institutions must take place and be restored, although man s sin hath put them out of course, and so they shall be de livered from that bondage of corruption into a glorious liberty.
Just thus had sin spoiled God s first institution of marriage, which was to propagate holiness, and his image, sin clean perverting it to convey Satan s image to all mankind ; but grace towards his elect vindicates it, and sets
it a-running in its natural course again. So presently, after the flood, God set grace on work in a line of succession in Seth s posterity, so afterward in the Jews, and so still in the Gentiles. And when the reign of grace shall be fully restored (as in the new Jerusalem it shall), then their seed, and their seed s seed generally and without interruption, shall be for ever holy, as was observed out of Isa. lix. 21 ; for the privileges will be restored which
they had in innocency, even as this liberty of the creatures will.
(2.) A second rule which I give, that God hath squared and chalked out his ways and proceedings of grace by, which also falls in with this of his towards the children of elect, and so may further shew the wisdom of God in ordering it thus, is this, that God hath so plotted and contrived his go ings forth of grace, that look by what ways or means sin comes upon man kind for his ruin and destruction, God takes up those very ways to choose, as means to save his elect of mankind by, and effects so to do it. Which holds forth a further thing than the former ; for this shews, that as he makes good his institutions in innocency under grace, so he makes use of the same weapons with which sin was wont to fight against him, and this he chooses to do, as we may observe in many particulars, which we will first
view, to make good the rule, and then make use of it in the point in hand.
[1.] Because by a man sin and death came upon man, therefore by a man shall grace come, and the resurrection from the dead. You shall find it given as the reason, 1 Cor. xv. 21,
* Since by man came death, by man comes also the resurrection from the dead. God did it on purpose to answer sin in its kind ; it is there brought as the reason of that great counsel of God, of saving us by that man Christ Jesus. Ecrg/Sjj yag, a reason it was, not as the ground of that his counsel, but as concurring with, and fitly falling in
with, that his counsel.
[2.] Furthermore, as by one man sin came upon all, so the gift of
grace by one man hath abounded unto many, Bom. v. 12, 15.
[3.J Yet further, as Satan used the woman as an instrument to work that one man Adam unto that sin, which by him, not her, is propagated, so God used the woman to bring forth that same one man, Christ, who should re store and save us. This God had in his eye, as appears plainly in that, to confound the devil, he tells him, for if you observe, unto the serpent is that
speech directed, that the seed of the woman should break the serpent s head. As if he had said, I will spoil your plot in using the woman ; you had better never have gone that way to work ; the seed of her shall break
CHAP. VII.] OF ELECTION. 481
thy head. And the apostle himself hints it, for the honour of women, 1 Tim.
ii. 15, for having said ver. 14, that the woman was first deceived, and first
in the transgression (there speaking of that sin of Eve as a reason of all women s being excluded from all honourable offices in the church, and so
laying low and debasing all womankind), he adds notwithstanding that she
* for that bear
shall be saved (that is, womankind as well as men), by, or
ing a child, dia, rqg nxvoyoviaf, namely Christ, in that one of their sex did
bring forth Christ to save us, even as one of their sex overthrew us. Thus some of the ancients, and modern divines also, have taken it, that his scope should be, to compare the hand that woman had, and the service she did in
saving man, with that ill turn she did man in tempting him to that sin, which brought death upon all ; and so, indeed, the analogy or proportion between these and the former words is more full and direct, and ad idem, for,
First, So he compares the eminent act of one woman in sinning, with the most eminent act of a woman in doing good.
Secondly, It is so made the reason why women should be saved notwith
standing. The Greek hath it, d.a rqg, &c. for that child-bearing ; there
is an article added, and dia is a note of causation, as rendering a reason why
womankind (though one of them damned man) should be saved, seeing they made a recompense, as he had alleged the other as a reason of their debase
ment.
And thirdly, Thus also it is more general, as reaching to the honour of all
women, as the other doth unto the dishonour of all, whereas otherwise that
ordinary child-bearing is but of mothers only. I do not exclude that other
interpretation, that he speaks of the proper calling of women, in which (as some read it) God hath ordained to save them, as in opposition to what he
had said of excluding them from speaking and bearing offices in the church,
those high callings ; yet so, as I think, being taken in this sense, rendereth
it more for their honour, as more generally reaching all women, even as
Eve s fall reacheth universally to their dishonour ; whereas the calling of
child-bearing reacheth but some of women only, namely, mothers.
[4.] Fourthly, The way by which Adam s sin was derived, was by imputa
tion, he representing us all ; and God, to make us amends, takes the same
course to justify us, by imputing or reckoning Christ s righteousness ours, who represented us also in his obedience.
[5.] Fifthly, Satan insinuating a temptation by discourse to the outward
ear deceived Eve, and she through unbelief listening to his temptation, fell
and ruined us. And God hath ordained in recompense, the preaching of
the gospel, and hearing of it, to beget faith, and faith all graces else, and
so to be the instrument of saving us.
The like correspondent recompense (to instance in no more) hath Croc
made in the thing in hand, by ordaining a succession of his elect in a line,
and an engrafting the children into the fathers covenant, thereby ordering
that generation should in some respect be the channel and stream for his free
grace to run into the vessels of mercy, because that generation is and was
the instrument that conveyed sin and the curse to us and ours ; that so
blessing might come in at the same door upon us, through which the curse
entered. Only, as the apostle says, in that like case which we instanced in,
Rom. v., that as by one man sin entered, so by one man grace, yet witl
a glorious difference on grace s part ; so as ver. 15 16, he gives a different
glory to grace, Not as the offence, so is the free gift ; the one entered upon
all men* ver 12, naturally and necessarily, but grace conies upon them
and is ^ceived as a free gift, ver. 16-18. So here, propagation is used
il H VOL. IX.
482 OF ELECTION. [BOOK Y.
as tlie channel of grace and as the channel of sin ; but so to be understood, as with a servatis semper prarogatims gratia, with a not as by any natural
influence generation hath, as it conveys sin, naturally and necessarily ; but this other is freely conveyed, and therefore oftentimes is not derived
until the children be come to ripe years, and not at all to some of their
children, to shew that grace will be grace in it ; yet so as God hath in a
great measure freely entailed it to their seed. And the reason why God
delights to use the same ways to convey grace which conveyed sin, is,
First, By way of compensation, to make them amends, that they might be able to say, that all things are wrought about for their good.
And, secondly, that the same things that tended most unto their hurt should be means of conveying the greatest good.
Yea, thirdly, hereby he justifies his course in conveying sin, and takes off much of the seeming harshness and inequality that wicked men lay to his
charge therein, in that he useth the same way to derive a blessing of grace. If they quarrel the imputation of another s sin, the answer is ready, that God hath provided that we may be saved by the imputation of another s
righteousness ; if that seem harsh, that men should convey unto their chil dren sin and death together with their being, and that men s very issuing out of the loins of Adam should render them sinful and corrupt, how doth
this lenify it, that if they will turn to God they may be made instruments of
conveying a blessing to their children greater than that curse, a grace sur
passing that sin (for so the promise runs). Why then, man, shouldst thou quarrel against God ?
Fourthly, God therein shews forth the glory of his wisdom, that in those
very things wherein Satan dealt proudly God should go beyond him. Satan
knowing the curse denounced by God, that if Adam fell, all his children should fall in him, and should by a just law have in their very generation from him that sin derived, thought he, Man s fall will be such a check and blemish unto God s proceedings that it will quite spoil the game, that it can never be played out, but will hold all mankind, young and old, under an
inevitable law of being damned, and that by a law which God hath set, which Satan had put this absurdity now upon, that through that very thing by which they are made men they should at once be made sinful men, at once
nati and damnati. But how does God circumvent and go beyond him
herein, and not only removes out of check, but gives him a mate ! He lets
that law stand in full force, and suffers all mankind by generation to be
corrupted, and cares not, he having an elect under hand among them, whom
* known unto God from the beginning, Acts xv. 16; whom he hath so ranked and mustered in
only he means to save, and who above all his works are
their succession and genealogy written in his book, that still it may fall out, that by generation this blessing may be conveyed, and that in that line elec
tion may run. Thus did God s wisdom lie in ambushment to retort this
absurdity back again on sin and Satan, to their greater confusion, which is
the most pure revenge and glorious victory that could be.
And this fourth and last reason of the former rule hints me to another
rule, by which I have observed God to have regulated his proceedings of
grace, which also holds in the matter in hand, and may be a further reason
for it ; and it is, that God hath made his proceedings of grace suitable to, and justifiable by, the like common proceedings and principles of men one towards another, so as he will be able to justify them according to the prin
ciples taken up by, and current among, men themselves, and to take in all
sorts of reasons to make good his ways ; as for instance, that God should
love one man, and ordain him a vessel of honour, and not another. Do not
CHAP. VIII.] OF ELECTION. 483
kings the like ? Dan. v. 19, And for the majesty that he gave him, all people, nations, and languages, trembled and feared before him : whom he would he slew, and whom he would he kept alive, and whom he would he set up, and whom he would he put down and you quarrel not them. Does not the potter take the same lump, and make vessels of honour and dishonour ?
< Who art thou, man, that disputest against God ? Rom. ix. 21. Again, that for the sin of man the creature should be cursed, and his children fall from their dignity with him ; do not men ordain the like by a law of nations ? namely, that traitors houses be made Jakes, their children accounted tainted, oftentimes their whole families ruined and rooted out. So among the Persians, and Grecians, and others. Yet again, that the death and satisfaction of another (namely, Christ) should be accepted to
acquit us, which the Socinians can by no means swallow, is just by the con sent and suffrage of all nations, whenas the party that satisfies for that other shall be willing to it, and freely undertake it, as Christ did. This we see in the law of hostages, which is in force and use among all nations, and when the covenants are broken by those for whom they remain hostages, they are
justly slain, though in themselves innocent. Now Christ became our surety and an hostage for us. Thus likewise, that we should be justified by the
righteousness of another, and have our sins imputed to him, and his obe dience to us-(which the papists stomach at), is justifiable by all laws of men, which enact that the wife s debt should be laid to the husband. Now to
bring this down to the point in hand, that the children of godly parents should be holy in our esteem, and that God s elect should have their fathers
privilege, it agrees but with the common dictate of nature in all common
wealths, cities, and kingdoms, wherein the children are born free, when the
parents are so. The children of noblemen are accounted noble ; of gentle men, gentlemen ; of basely begotten, base. The state of the child follows
the state and condition of the parent in civil things, and why might not God ordain that in spiritual privileges they should follow their state also, and the children of holy men be, and be reckoned to be, holy ? Shall not God be as large in his favours as men in theirs ? Yea, shall he not rather
exceed them ?